It&rsquo;s no secret the Royals will be watching closely this afternoon to see if right-hander Gil Meche shows any signs of the &ldquo;dead arm&rdquo; that limited his effectiveness last Friday in Pittsburgh.</p><p> You can play along, too, by tracking Meche&rsquo;s velocity on the radar gun in the 1:10 p.m. game against the Twins. If he is topping out in the high 80s, regard that as a warning siren.</p><p> &ldquo;Everything else feeds off my fastball,&rdquo; Meche said. &ldquo;So if my fastball is not good, my curveball is going to be terrible. So on and so forth. I&rsquo;ve never had to be a pitcher who completely relied on location.</p><p> &ldquo;The other day, I gave up a couple of home runs right over the plate. If those pitches are 93-94 (mph), maybe they get fouled off. It makes the biggest difference in the world.&rdquo;</p><p> Meche believes he&rsquo;s battling a &ldquo;little built-up tendinitis &mdash; nothing serious.&rdquo; He also anticipates no problems after an air-it-out throwing session Monday that followed two days of not throwing at all.</p><p> &ldquo;Everybody goes through this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had it many times in the past. It&rsquo;s just a matter of getting through it. It&rsquo;s just a little fatigue. I&rsquo;ve just got to get through a couple of starts and everything will be fine.&rdquo;</p><p> Meche joins club officials in dismissing concerns that his ineffectiveness in his last two starts stemmed from throwing a career-high 132 pitches June 16 in a complete-game shutout against Arizona.</p><p> &ldquo;I felt fine warming up in the bullpen (before allowing nine runs in 3 1/3 innings against St. Louis),&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just the other day (in Pittsburgh) that I didn&rsquo;t feel I had it.</p><p> &ldquo;Then in the game, obviously, I didn&rsquo;t have it. So I just tried to labor through five innings. No pain or anything. I just didn&rsquo;t have my normal velocity.&rdquo;</p><p> Pitching coach Bob McClure suggests the problem resulted from Meche trying to do too much when he began struggling against the Cardinals.</p><p> &ldquo;He had just pitched a shutout,&rdquo; McClure said. &ldquo;Now, he tries to be even better than that. And when it didn&rsquo;t go right, he tried even harder. I think that had more to do with it than the 132 pitches.&rdquo;</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Guillen sits again</span></strong></p><p> Outfielder Jos&eacute; Guillen wasn&rsquo;t in the starting lineup for the second straight game because of soreness near his left hip and groin. Guillen entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the sixth inning.</p><p> Guillen said he&rsquo;s battled the problem for a while.</p><p> &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been trying to get it right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s not been working so far. I don&rsquo;t want to go into a lot of details right now, but I&rsquo;ve not been playing at 100 percent.&rdquo;</p><p> Guillen is batting .255 with eight homers and 33 RBIs in 61 games.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Updating Gordon</span></strong></p><p> Third baseman Alex Gordon is scheduled to shift his rehab playing assignment Friday to Class AAA Omaha, where he figures to be a major attendance attraction as a native Nebraskan who became an All-American as a Cornhusker. Gordon never played professionally in Omaha prior to reaching the big leagues. He is recovering from April 17 surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right hip and began his rehab assignment last Friday at Surprise in the Arizona Rookie League.</p><p> Gordon played defense Monday, for four innings, after spending his first two games as a designated hitter. He is two for seven with two walks.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Etc.</span></strong></p><p>&bull;The Royals signed shortstop Justin Trapp, a 34th-round draft pick from Fairfield Central High School in South Carolina.